


Something in the Water

by daw



Series: Sing A Steelsong [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daw/pseuds/daw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ned Stark's execution, the Hound notices the little bird changing. And it isn't just confusion over the question of Sansa Stark and his feelings. Everyone thinks they know how she spends her days and nights, but when she isn't where she ought to be? And fishermen whisper of a fast-swimming demon in the water? </p><p>Sandor starts putting things together, and the reality is one he never dreamed of. </p><p>Might be he's a little frightened.</p><p> </p><p>Trainer!Sandor, Warrior!Sansa</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Running Water

**Author's Note:**

> This is post-Ned's execution, heavy AU. The universe is closer to Tamora Pierce-style Middle Ages, and Sandor's a little bit easier to recognize as a good guy. 
> 
> Sansa is aged up, YMMV on how old or young.
> 
>  
> 
> 2/27/2017: After almost two years, I'm returning to this. The thesis of this story rests on Sansa being not younger than sixteen, and as time goes on, I'll explain why that is so critically important. While you could successfully argue that my Sansa does not follow from the Sansa we know and love, I hope to change your mind if you accompany me on this story.
> 
> This story depends on these main points: 1) Sansa had enough time to grow as a young woman in Winterfell. 2) Ned and Cat did not say "fuck it" when they raised her, and when they did, the effects of their faults are named. 3) The tragedy is that Sansa must become a killer (though she doesn't quite make it), because the society she lives in rewards only the strong and not the good. 4) The effects of Joffrey's abuse do not disappear the moment Sandor touches Sansa, or she him. If you're reading just for SanSan and not the characters and their personal goals, someday the smut will come, but it will be a very very long time. 
> 
> As always, criticism and thoughts are welcome, and I won't be bowing out this time. I appreciate all mentions of canon inconsistency and OOC, even if this is AU.

The morning chill rested at his feet. Months and months of summer had made an oven of King’s Landing. Now, the cold air in Sandor Clegane’s room felt like salvation.

 

Outside his window, the sky was dark. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He lived for the mornings and these moments before thought.

  

When he swung his feet to the stone floor, the spell broke. Across the room, a small mirror hung on the wall. Sandor tilted his head, eyes fixed on that piece of glass. The circle was filled with ruined skin flowing around an angry, grey eye. The Hound. There. Now he was in character, now he wasn’t a man. Now he could begin the day.

  

His room was bare, a cell more than a room. He owned precious little: his armor, his weapons, his horse, his clothes. That was all. He dressed himself in training clothing, tugging a jerkin over the rough grey of his shirt. One last glance at that small mirror to remind himself, and he was gone.

  

He strode through the still, dark halls of the barracks. _Rise before the sun, rest after its setting._ That was the way. Many saw Sandor Clegane the drunkard, the dog, the man who fucked and killed whomever he pleased. Few saw Clegane the commander, the talented, yes, but above all, disciplined fighter. It was just as well, he chuckled at his thoughts, the deep growl echoing to the training yard’s entrance before him. Then a few of the stupid bastards might respect him.

  

In the lightening dark, assembled before him was an odd group of young pages and older squires. They were lines of statues in the grey morning, yet there was a curious eagerness in their stance. These boys would grow up to be knights, and then they would spit on him. He'd trained scores of squires by now, and without fail, they grew to see him the way all others did when they left their training halls. But for now, he was their god, a hard man but not a mean one.

  

He walked across the packed dirt to stand before them. Like clockwork, soundless, they began their limbering exercises. The sequence was rhythmic, the only dance he knew. When they were done, he held himself as still as they, turned around, and started off at a light jog to the yard’s exit. A few score boys followed close behind him, feet soft as lambs. He first lead them up the stone steps.

  

“Feet high!” he roared. “When you’re fighting up steps in plate armor, and you trip, some piss-brained fucker’s gonna cleave your skull. Is this how you die?” 

 

“No!” the boys shouted behind him.

  

“I can’t hear you breathing! You lose air, you lose your fucking worthless lives. Faint right when the enemy charges your lord’s gates. Is this how you die?”

  

“No!”

  

He heard their cadences changing, and was satisfied. Feet reaching higher, airborne longer; breaths deeper, breaths longer. Seconds, that was the difference between death and life, a mistake and victory. 

  

When they made the battlements, he lengthened his stride. Already, the boys started falling behind him. The fast ones nipped at his heels, confident in their speed. The middle pack always pissed him off. Those boys might have been the first tier, but they were weak-willed boys. Privilege leeched at what could have made them warriors. Those ones always complained about what happened next.

  

Down, taking steps as many as seven at a time, Clegane lead the pack outside the Palace Gates. Here, the braver common-folk children waited, boys and girls from the city’s slums. Their eyes were bright with hunger, and not just the kind felt by empty bellies. Clegane always marked who joined them first, which stupid, brave boy dared to run with a pack of nobles. It was subtle rebellion, running faster than a noble. He’d kill himself before admitting it, but on the rare times it was a girl who dared, it made his heart hurt. That was how it used to be, years ago, when he and Anna ran through the dewy grasses of House Clegane, equals in spirit and speed.

 

He bit the inside of his mouth, hard. Thoughts like that didn’t belong here. Those thoughts were for remembrance, for her and his mother’s nameday, the only days of the year he let himself feel saddened and afraid. He gulped down wine more than usual on that day.

  

They continued their run through the Street of Steel. They wouldn’t stop until they reached the Gate of the Gods, trailing through all the city’s cesspools. As they passed through the fish markets, a coldness trailed up his spine. Feet rushed close behind him. He moved faster, his heart speeding to match his pace. The feet rushed with him. He was still far from sprinting, but still, the sound of feet flowed behind. By this point in the run, there was always a widening gap between him and the fastest of the pack. Not this time.

 

Anger flowed through his veins. The Hound knew he was formidable, a giant among men, but his brother rendered his strength weakness by comparison. So he had to be quick, unusual for a man as large as him. His burns were evidence of his slowness as a child. He hated this boy, then, for nearing him. For daring to challenge the place Anna’s phantom held at his side. This boy who could’ve escaped flames and a brother’s cruelty.

  

For the first time, the commoners along the streets saw the Hound run for his life. It gave them pause. The sight terrified them, granite moving with an arrow’s swiftness. What he couldn’t see awed them even more. A child, tall but lithe, flowed like Valyrian steel behind him. The child wore a turban on his head, face covered in the tradition of the East Isles. The pack of boys stretched far behind them.

 

The boy, finally gasping for breath, almost drew even with him. Long legs matched pace, the two of them as dissimilar as iron and gold, earth and air. The gates stood just yards before them, offering no time to resolve their contest. They skidded to a stop beneath an empty guardhouse, chests heaving. The pack of boys were far behind them. He turned to look at the stranger. In a slow moment, the boy lifted his hands to the slitted cloth covering his face, and revealed his eyes.

 

Blue eyes, solemn and deep as oceans, stared back at him. He would know those eyes anywhere. Not a young man, then, but a young woman. He could drown in those eyes. Mayhap he already had. A strange moment passed between them. She spoke no words, but still, she asked some question.

  

Sansa Stark wrapped her face once more, and turned to run back to the palace. She didn’t look back to him. The sun was almost set to rise now. Its rays poured on the rough breeches and loose shirt concealing her form.

 

Curiosity replaced the anger in his heart. Had he gone mad?

  

Something had happened in the mind of Sansa Stark, and bugger the world, he would find out.


	2. Killers and their Dead

 On Sandor’s left, a boy of ten stretched back his hand and released his bow. The arrow pierced the target’s center. 

 

“That’s all, Hamish. Kellan, your last, now. Make it true.”

 

Isolated from the other pages, he had the twins. Kellan and Hamish of House Ferren—they were small, quiet, and from a House of the same qualities. But they were quick in eye as well as mind, and so they were made archers.

 

A look passed between him and Hamish as Kellan took the bow and quiver from his twin. Hamish was the killer, and his brother would die when he was no longer there to kill for him. Solemnly, they watched the elder boy shoot. 

 

The arrow pierced the center. Aye, he was a good shot. He could make the bowstring sing, but only because he'd first learned and loved the harp. Where Kellan hesitated for the perfection of hitting the center again and again and again, Hamish was drawn to it, natural and cold in his accuracy. A born killer, like himself.

 

In Sandor’s mind, the race of men was split in two groups: the killers and the dead. While every man and woman could kill, those unfit for the task were dead sods walking. They merely waited for their killer. The dead often had protectors: people who cared for them, people paid to protect them. But only the best killers could defend the dead, and the best killers weren’t in the business of defending dead men. They were the bringers of death, and Sandor stood among their ranks. He’d never seen the dead become killers, except for that morning. Nausea rose in his stomach, his heart thudding with each of Kellan’s mechanical shots. Had he seen a dead girl rising? 

 

A few more shots, and the bell tolled again, ringing the end of morning training. He clapped both boys on the shoulder, and left. He never praised them. Mastery was its own reward.

 

He returned to his room, grabbed a change of clothes, and walked briskly to the barrack’s bathhouse. 

 

Thick wooden walls kept the baths warm. Hot air permeated the house’s many rooms. Sandor quickly undressed and stood in the atrium, which opened into the house’s three pools. Two were filled with hot and lukewarm water; the third was frigid. When he was almost unbearably warm from the steam, Sandor walked through the short corridor to the cold baths. He hated the warm ones. For Ned Stark’s brief time as Hand, many mornings saw Sandor alone with a group of Northmen. Sandor eased his warm body into the water’s coolness. Eyes closed, his mind turned back to that strange morning. 

 

The little bird had flown so fast beside him, leading a pack of pages, squires, and the city’s dregs.  It had been nigh four months since her father’s execution. In that time, the little bird prayed and wept and sang. Early mornings carried her steps to the godswood; days marked her with the slanders and abuse of her king; and the setting sun brought her to her knees at the stone Sept. So she prayed and wept and sang. She didn't fly, caged as she was. He'd missed a great something, even as chance encounters had given them opportunities to talk and her, fuck knew why, to confide in him. 

 

Sandor hauled himself out of the pool and shook away the water clinging to him. Still, the haze of thoughts accompanied him from his arrival at Joff’s door, through his entire day. The haze didn’t leave him. He’d be a buggering liar if a little of it wasn’t just confusion. He liked to think on Sansa Stark. Liked to think on what he’d do to her. Sandor Clegane used to hate banquets, but they practically gifted him that liking of his. For hours, in the din of fools and their merriment, he could be near her. Watching her dance was torture. All the hells and each heaven coursed hot in his veins when he saw her dance with some lord or lordling. Tonight would be the same.

 

Sandor stood outside his master’s door, waiting for his command. 

 

“Summon the Stark girl.” Joffrey’s voice could be heard through the opening door. A maid, dark-eyed and slender, rushed out the door, pattering through the halls to Sansa’s room. 

 

Sandor’s ignored the twisting sensation in his belly. _Remember your place, dog._ When the maid returned, Sansa walked beside her, clothed in a grey, northern dress. He stared hard at her, and again, she met his gaze and held it. She lifted her stubborn chin so slightly, and walked into Joff’s chamber like she hadn’t run beside him.

 

_Know your place._

 

* * * * *

 

"Go dance with her, Hound." Joffrey's voice punctuated the loud rumbling of the Great Hall. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? A dog dancing with his master's bitch?" 

 

Sandor craned his head away from the sight of Sansa dancing with Ser Loras Tyrell. Cruel humor glimmered in his eyes and twisted his mouth.

 

"Isn't that the way of it, dog?"

 

Sandor still remembered the boy-king as a child, how he once looked up at him in the same room, and asked a very different question. 

 

_Cersei and Robert sat next to each other, Joffrey at Robert's left. It was the feast of Joffrey's name day. As Joffrey sat watching the spectacle of Tyroshi performers, with their flips and impossible dances, his mother and father cursed at each other, spitting their hatred as they grew full with wine._

 

_Joff was such a small boy, then. Just eight years of age. When Robert paused to address his son, it was only to bring him into the fight._

 

_"Look at 'im, woman. I was hunting and fighting by his age, as broad and strong as he is slim and weak. Do I honor you for this?" He waved his hand at Joffrey. His words slurred off his tongue. "Should I be kind to you for this disappointing son and the pleasantness of your company, wife? I bed who I fucking please.”_

 

_Sandor remembered how Joffrey's little breath caught in his throat and rattled in his small chest. How his eyes dilated in fear and hurt._

 

_Towards the end of the feast, when the elder lords and ladies of court danced to the sweeter, sadder strains of the bards’ instruments, Joffrey had looked up at him. His mother and father sat in drunken stupors._

 

_"Could you be my father, Ser Sandor? Would you like that?"_

 

_"Not a ser, child."_

 

_"Sandor. Would it please you to be my father?"_

 

When Sandor looked at Joffrey now, he forced himself to remember and beat back the madness in his veins. He remembered and answered the way he had then.

 

"If it pleases your Highness."

 

He strode off the raised dais, clearing a path through the revelers to the little bird. The closing strains of the song hushed the rustlings of skirts and the stamps of boots. The little bird swayed with her back to him. Ser Loras' arms guided her languidly. They looked like twin swans, young and gentle in the moonlight streaming through the Hall's high windows.

 

Sandor felt a savage pleasure at his task. The little bird would trade a flower knight for a scarred beast, a lordling for a dog. And he was a beggar. Seven hells, he'd die for the crumbs that fell from his master's table, and he despised himself for it.

 

He laid his hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. A gasp slipped from between her lips. 

 

"The King's orders."

 

Her blue eyes glanced to his. The song started the moment before she placed her hand in his, and rested her hand on his shoulder. The dancers around them paused to look at the spectacle. The Hound, armored for battle, danced with their future queen. 

 

"None of your chirpings, girl?" he rasped down at her. It felt as if the entire court stared at his burns and marveled at his hideousness. He felt like a trapped man screaming inside burning flames. He snorted at his thoughts. That's what he was.

 

He felt her back stiffen under his grasp. She looked anywhere but at him, eyes flickering to the ceilings and to their feet ghosting over the floor. 

 

"I thought I might ask a favor, ser."

 

"Not a ser," he hissed.

 

She glared up at him. "I thought I might ask a favor." When he stared without answer, she took a deep breath. "Run your hands across my shoulders. Then down my arms. And if you are daring, across my stomach."

 

He gripped her hand so hard, she cried out in pain. 

 

"Think this a game, girl? To toy with your king's dog?" He couldn't stop the anger shaking his voice into a dull thunder.

  

"You think that of me?"

 

"What the fuck else is that _favor_?"

 

"Do it and find for yourself the truth I am trying to tell you."  

 

He let her see the rage in his eyes. Without breaking her gaze, he did as she asked. She shivered when his hand caught at the fabric of her neckline and as he let his thumb whisper across her neck. The question and expectation in her eyes fascinated him. When he gripped her arm, a dull pit started to form in his stomach. The dance had turned them so that he faced Joffrey seated on his wooden throne, yet he didn't glance at his master before he felt the smooth length of her abdomen.

 

"What is this?" Now full-grown, the little bird had fulfilled the beauty of her womanhood. Where softness should have been, however, he felt the lithe curves of trained limbs and strengthened muscles. She bore the strength of his squires and a feral grace like few he’d ever known.

 

“There is no cause for explanation if you deny my request.”

 

Moving his hand from her waist to her chin, Sandor tilted her head up at him. Millions of thoughts fired in his mind, but he couldn’t free himself of the present: in another life, this might have been his hall and she his wife. 

 

She rose on tiptoes to whisper in his burned ear. “Train me, so I might escape from here with a chance of living.” Those words might as well have burned him all over again. Her belief that she could accomplish such a thing broke him. He had questions, but they would find no answers. Her small, cool hand slipped behind his neck. When she settled back on her feet, she pulled him down with her. 

 

“I can’t stay here. Joffrey will hurt me until he tires of the pleasure it brings him, and then they will kill me. Please, please, Sandor.” 

 

“No.” He wrenched free of her grasp. “ _No._ And do you know why?”

 

He took one look at her hopeful face shining up at him, and chose to let the Hound run. He saved her from a far worse fate, but that was a lie for his own, small peace.

 

“You are a little girl, filled with stories even after you saw your father’s head rolling across stone. You thought yourself the princess, girl, the one saved, aye? Now, you think yourself the knight.”

 

She recoiled from him, but he held her close, laughing cruelly.

 

“You are neither. Do you know why? You asked the Hound to make you a knight, when you couldn’t shove him away if you fucking tried, couldn’t keep him from your rooms. Couldn’t raise your voice if he came to kill you on his master’s orders. The day you can make the Hound your master, is the day you are no longer a weak, _stupid little bird_ stuffed with tales. And that day will never come.” 

 

He could feel Joffrey’s approval staining his back. Now this made sense to the dancers around him. The Hound hurting the lady, uttering his vile words from his snarling mouth.

 

“Now you will wait until I take you to—“

 

“You won’t hurt me.” She stared up at him solemnly. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, but they didn't fall. In that quiet, defiant voice, she said it again, “You won’t hurt me.”

 

The fight left him. 

 

“No, little bird, I won’t hurt you.”

 

The feast ended soon after. He watched the little bird leave, escorted by Trant. Hours later, relieved from his duties, he collapsed on his bed. The corridor’s dim torchlight shone underneath his door. He rubbed a weary hand over his eyes, and reached for the wineskins he’d brought with him. He drank until he couldn’t see.

 

The dreaming hour would be filled with beasts and weeping birds tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of trouble writing this one; the pace is much slower than the last. I know this is a huge request considering I'm a newbie, but if anyone would like to help beta (and discuss the "endgame" of the story with me), I would be so grateful.
> 
> Also, all criticisms are welcome and a huge help! 
> 
> Thank you for reading. If this isn't a crackfic already, wait for what's coming..


	3. The Rebirth of Sansa Stark

A few months had passed since her father’s execution, but it seemed without time, both occurring in a blink of an eye and in the span of eternity. The first month saw Sansa listless with grief. The queen’s insults and Joffrey’s tortures clarified her new place in court, and she didn’t much care. Gone was the girl who lived in songs and books. The Hound alone noticed the blankness hazing her eyes, how her dresses hung looser and looser from her frame. He mocked her for it, saying, “The little bird aspires to a bird’s frame.” It was true. Cages only worked if one was too large to slip through the bars. She’d said as much, looking the Hound in the eyes as she did. He’d appraised her curiously, and what he found in her eyes began their strange truce. She didn’t know he’d understood her response differently than she’d meant it. The Hound thought her only escape in death, and he did not wish it. Sansa didn’t know he had the right of it, that he saw her walk the paths he too had walked in his childhood, motherless and burned.

  
   
On the king’s orders, he stood outside her door for that month after Lord Stark’s death. When a maid brought a tray of food, Sansa would promptly slide it back out. In parry, Clegane would catch the door with his boot, and send it back in. This exchange happened a few times after, until steadily, life returned to her. Not many paid attention to Sansa, not truly. If not for the Hound, she would have wasted away not long after her father’s death. Yet, in truth, it was Sansa who began the difficult process of saving herself. For the girl she once was, this was a very difficult process indeed.

  
   
It was a warm dark night, and Sansa lay abed, staring at the dark ceiling. At night, she retreated deep within herself to a quiet place devoid of thought and feeling. The telltale swing of a door interrupted her trance. She froze, listening for footsteps that did not come. She rose from her bed and walked towards the sound’s source. The moonlight shining through the window revealed an open trapdoor beneath it. Her heart thrummed in her thin chest. Who had opened it, and why? Did someone wait for her at the other end? She could find no handle on the door. It was odd, part stone on top, where it blended with the floor, and part wood underneath. Nothing could be seen past the first few steps except for a cavernous dark. Part of her wanted to reject such an ominous invitation, part of her didn’t want to pass an unknown opportunity.

  
   
Minutes passed before she decided. Taking an old sash from her trunk, she knotted it around the door, creating a handle of sorts. When she let it down, the edges seemed to disappear. The sash looked so silly stuck in the floor that Sansa smiled. Moving anything large to cover it would be suspicious, but she had to conceal this from her maids somehow. She glanced to the shoes lined up along the opposite wall, and hurried to move them. The sky was already pinking with the sun’s first rays when Sansa finished. She had mixed the sash with the bands of her other shoes. No one could tell, and what’s more, no one would look for escape in a hostage’s shoes.

 

  
Days passed and thoughts of the door began to edge out Sansa’s grief. One night, Joffrey made Trant kick her belly again and again. He didn’t stop until she vomited; he’d laughed at that, and sent her back to her rooms, bidding her good night. The Hound walked with her. Silence filled the space between them when they reached her door. She murmured her thanks to the Hound, and closed the door behind her. Her back pressed to the wall, she drew strength from the knowledge that he was just outside. She cocked her head at the shoes under the window, and bit her lip.

  
   
A few moments later, she stood before the tunnel’s opening. She looked once more to the door, and descended into the darkness.

  
   
Each night, Sansa ventured further into the underground tunnel. The temptation to bring a light lingered, but it brought the threat of discovery. Sansa discovered that the tunnel leading from her room was part of a whole network of tunnels that could only hold secrets not meant for a traitor's daughter.

 

There was a story she’d read to Arya when they were little. It was about a mad king and a labyrinth he had built. The memory of the story’s end escaped her, but in that tale, the hero never lifted his left hand from the wall. Sansa followed suit, never lifting her left hand from the cool stone that entombed her. Sometimes voices would float down the halls, or the sound of boots, or as it happened once, the dragging of bodies, though Sansa couldn’t recognize the sound. Sometimes lights afar off would briefly reveal the many corridors branching from the one she trod. Once, she saw a figure flitting far away. Best not carry a light, indeed. Besides, she liked to forget Sansa Stark for a while. In those tunnels, Sansa became a ghost. Morning found her tired and worn, but at night, she longed only for the tunnels. To think that Sansa Stark once feared the night.

 

A map slowly took shape in her mind. She grew stronger from her night walks and walked without fear that she’d fall into a pit, run into a wall, or worse. It had been three weeks since the first sojourn into the tunnels. Sat in Joffrey’s chambers to take supper with the royal family, Sansa resolved that tonight, she would finally seek the tunnel’s end. She kept her eyes down at her food, and stopped eating only to accept Cersei or Joffrey’s insults. The dinner ended without event, and the Hound escorted her back to her rooms.  
  
 

“Thank you, Sandor.”  
  
 

She heard his mouth open and close. It was the first she’d spoken his name. She could hear his breath even over the stamp of his boots. “For being the dog of your king?” he finally spat.

 

“For being my friend, ser.” Her face felt foreign to her when she smiled. She wanted to hear the familiar reply once more if the tunnel’s end led her to a trap, some new cage.

 

“Not a ser, girl,” he said. They had reached her door. Standing before him, a drunken ecstasy coursed through her veins. It was hunger and fear and hope for what would lie at the tunnel's end, revealed to her by some unknown player.

 

“Are you ser you're not a ser, ser?” Her laughter was far too close to a keen, but he ignored it. The little bird was strong of mind, but perhaps she’d been drifting to madness all this time. Each day, deliverance moved further beyond her reach.  
  
 

“What’s buggering you, girl?” Genuine confusion knit his brow. She couldn’t see the worry there.  
  
 

When she couldn’t answer through her wheezing, he began to chuckle, a surprised and snarly thing. They were two, despairing fools, she realized, but they were fools uncertainly thrown together. Her body seemed to act of its own accord as she rose on tiptoe and nipped his cheek. His burned cheek. She’d slipped into her room before a word could exit his mouth.

 

She closed and locked her door, stripping her outer dress and shoes in a frenzy. The need to discover if her life would truly end as prisoner in this hell consumed her. She would not falter.  
  
 

 

She opened the door as she yanked pins and ties from her hair. A deep breath before the tunnel, and then she ran. The young woman pressed her finger tips to the wall, craving the bite of the rough rock. It bit at her, resisting her advance, but she only ran faster. The urge to howl strangled her throat, and her lungs burned when she couldn’t satisfy it.

 

Near the end of her endurance, Sansa turned a new corner and fell on earthen stairs. They were bathed in moonlight coming from above. She knelt on the bottom stair and waited for her breath to calm. There was something sacred about the place above her. She felt no fear as she ascended the steps. What they lead to brought her to her knees.  
  
   
                                                                                                                 *******  
  
   
The person who revealed that trapdoor had given Sansa a tremendous gift. He also asked a question. The tunnel opened into a forest clearing on the Rush’s bank. Across from it lay the Kingswood, visible even at night. When Sansa emerged from the tunnels, she saw the Rush’s expanse and the beauty of the woods around her. Overhead, with the Keep’s walls out of sight, she saw only stars. Sansa felt a freedom she’d known only in Winterfell’s godswood or swimming in the springs with her mother.

 

The trees alone watched the girl weep, and when her tears dried on her face, they watched her ponder. An unused dock led out from the clearing to the Rush. Sansa knew she would not be disturbed in this place, though she couldn’t explain why. She didn’t know why she had been lead to this place, or if she’d been lead at all. She only knew the bone-deep ache to see her father again and hear his low voice tell her the stories she so loved, stories filled with the duty and honor and justice that chimed in her soul. Looking out on the Rush, she remembered when her mother first taught her to swim.

  
   
                                                                                                                 *******

 

Lady Catelyn had come upon her daughter crying quietly one night. She was a brave women, but fear for her children often found her checking them at night. She ran to hold her young daughter, tears pricking her own eyes. “I’m here, Sansa, I’m here. I don’t know what’s hurting you. Tell me, love, you can always tell me.” No words came, and she held the girl until she drifted off to a fitful sleep.

   
The next morning, Catelyn stole her from Septa Mordane’s tutelage, promising a surprise. Sansa quietly held her hand and followed her out the Hunter’s Gate and into the Wolfswood. They ventured through the thick trees until they came upon a deep spring, hidden by rocks and trees surrounding it. Together, they sat on the rocks at its edge.  
  
 

“I can tell you a tale only I know, little Sansa.” She smiled at the curiosity in her daughter’s eyes. “In the Riverlands, some of the older folk speak of creatures called mermaids, half-man and half-fish. Some even think they can walk among us if they choose.”  
  
 

Sansa laughed at the thought.  
  
 

“Aye, it is strange. When we swim and sail in their waters, we do so at their grace, and in turn, we pay them no ill. They are known to be quite tricky, but noble in their way. If a good man is drowning, from the Trident to the Red Fork, they know, and they will save him.”  
  
 

“How?” Sansa eyes were bright.  
  
 

“Whichever mermaid is closest to the man will answer his soul’s calling. He or she will swim as fast as they can, even if a gale bestirs the water. Whether the mermaid is strong or weak, she will save him.”  
  
 

“Are you a mermaid?”

  
   
Catelyn laughed loud and strong. “Might be.” She winked at her shocked daughter. “Mayhap you are too, little trout.”

With great care, Catelyn began teaching her daughter to swim, for Sansa feared the water at first. In time, her daughter’s ability shocked her. She could hold her breath a fearfully long time, diving to the spring’s bottom and swimming along it. They would race each other, and one day, Sansa won by a hand. Looking at her daughter’s triumphant smile, something in Catelyn’s heart loosened. She loved her husband, but the years’ passing did not remove the hurt from his betrayal. The hurt when he returned home with a son not born from her womb. She had missed Riverrun then, missed the Red Fork and the times she swam for hours, pretending herself a mermaid. She didn’t tell Ned, but the day her daughter swam as well as any Tully, she finally knew she was home.

 

  
                                                                                                                 *******

 

Memories of the time with her mother guided Sansa out onto the dock. It had been years since they swam together in that spring. She walked to the dock’s edge, and peered into the inky water. She felt the familiar peace settle on her shoulders as she shed her clothes. If she closed her eyes, her mother stood beside her, teasing her that Sansa might have won the time before, but not this time.  
  
 

She trailed a foot through the water. Starlight flecked the ripples. All the horror of the past month faded as she slipped into the water, and like that first time she swam the spring’s length, Sansa felt complete. She swam against the current towards the Bay, keeping to the bank’s edge. Her arms cut smoothly through the water. When she began to tire, she floated on her back, and let the current carry her. The water lapped against her skin; its sound was soothing, bringing new thoughts and old feelings in Sansa’s mind. She reflected on her past, and thought on her future with a clear eye. A blush rose in her cheeks at the recent memory of kissing the Hound’s cheek. Sansa cherished that embarrassment. For a brief moment, she felt like a young woman occupied with simpleton boys and dresses, though she thought on the Hound as she floated quite naked, which made her blush even more.

 

When the current returned her to the dock, she gripped its side and hauled herself out of the water. Her arms shook from the effort. With the care of a ritual, she wrung out her hair over the water, and pulled her shift back on. The white fabric stuck damply to her, but the warm summer air felt good after the Rush’s coolness. Stealing through tunnels, she left a trail of muddy footprints behind her. Back in her room, she closed the trapdoor. After rearranging the shoes, she promptly collapsed on her bed. There was no evidence of what had transpired.

The castle stirred for the new day around the girl, and not even the bells of the Keep could invade her dreamless sleep.

  
                                                                                                                 *******

  
   
Reader, to understand what is about to happen, you must understand this.  
  
  
Sansa Stark was not a brave girl.  
  
   
Her siblings suspected this of their sweet sister, but it wasn’t confirmed until the feast of her sixth name day. She was afraid of heights, and thus, the siblings agreed that Theon should place his present at the top of the tallest tree in the godswood. She had to climb it if she was to get it.  
  
   
After her noon celebration, they ran to the godswood. They stood at the tree’s gigantic base for nearly an hour, convincing and teasing Sansa as she climbed, but she couldn’t get higher than the lowest branches before nausea and fear paralyzed her. When she started to cry, Robb and Jon hurried to guide her safely down. Sansa had a lot of near weepings throughout their adventures, but this was the first time her fear had won over her pride. At supper, the children were stone silent. Peeking at Sansa’s white face and quivering lips told them that this time, their pranking had gone too far. Catelyn and Ned pressed them over and over again to tell what had happened, but even Sansa just shook her head.  
  
   
After that spring day, Sansa’s siblings left her to her sewing and her books. Robb, Jon, and Theon stepped lightly around her, gently teasing her only when the situation arose. Arya and later Bran and Rickon, however, felt betrayed. Arya would kill herself before admitting it, but she missed her older sister’s place in their rambunctious troupe. Now, Sansa snapped at them when they irritated her or pulled an odd prank, but for the most part, she kept to herself.  
  
   
Sansa bore the memory of her sixth name day long after, but for a different reason than her siblings would think. That spring night, when the winds were warm and gusty, she stole from her bedroom and into the godswood. The moon shone brightly on her as she rushed barefoot through the grass to the tallest tree in the godswood. Her face settled into a scowl as she looked to the tree’s top, jutting her sharp chin out defiantly. She never confided it to anyone, but she often pretended she was a wolf. There were many times when she had balked from a challenge, whether leaping a creek or trying to ride the wildest horses in the stables. But little did her siblings know, Sansa always came back to finish the challenge. A fierceness grew in her heart because of this. Yes, she was afraid, but by fighting through her fear, she didn’t fail to gain the victory.  
  
   
Eyes fixed on the full moon, she opened her mouth and howled. She began to climb. She was still afraid, but in the the godswood’s midnight stillness, her fear had clarity. It was no longer a bottomless pit, it was a tree stood strong for centuries. It was a tree bound with weathered bark and thick branches. It was now a fear that contained the key to conquering it. Sansa found this to be true of all fears.  
  
   
As she got closer and closer to the tree’s top, Sansa got closer to a fateful change in her beliefs. She didn’t know it; her heart already hungered for when she would throw the present on Theon’s plate tomorrow. But, it was not to be. When Sansa reached the top, the tallest branch at the tree’s narrow point—there was nothing. Not even a trace of rope to suggest the present had blown away. The truth was Theon had never expected her to make the climb. The challenge was an easy way to excuse why he’d forgotten to buy her a gift, his head already filled with the beautiful girls of Wintertown. It was such a small thing, but that day, Sansa confirmed her siblings’ suspicions of her fearful nature. Far, far worse was what happened that evening. In a haze, little Sansa found herself climbing down the tree and climbing back into her bed. She lay awake the whole night, and when the dawn came, she no longer believed herself a wolf. At the morning meal, she sat at her place, said her prayer, and that was that. From the corner of her eye, she dimly registered Theon’s plate and the present that was not there.  
  
   
A wolf may be strong, but without the assurance of her pack, she cannot know her own strength.  
  
  
In a den of lions, how would Sansa find hers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While Sandor's POV chapters are written from his perspective, I'm going for omniscient with Sansa's as well as some POV chapters like Sandor's and others. I'm struggling with this, and the pace is much slower with her narrative, but the reason for it becomes clear later on. In universe, her story is compiled by a narrator who won't be named until the very end. Her story is thus an actively curated collection of outside accounts, speculations, her own writings, her personal POV, et c. The effect I'm going for is the feel of a legend, a folk song, a cultural story in the making. Her and Sandor's close POV will always have the final say on what is true, but the makers of history do not write the history books.
> 
> BUT, I'm writing by the seat of my pants, so we'll all see....


End file.
